[mercutio2]

I can’t tell what part of that you think is different in the US.

The US has three major retirement regimes:

- Defined contribution retirement funds, owned by the employee, managed by employer designated group

- Defined benefit retirement funds, which are going away or nearly gone for non-public-employees, and are causing the bankruptcy of various states because governments thought it was clever to offer public employees most of their compensation in the distant future to deceive present taxpayers about the cost of government

- An income distributing safety net for the elderly which is dressed up to pretend it’s a retirement program

Doesn’t sound so different from most European systems I’m familiar with, except for the much better health care (which dominates costs in old age, of course)